


All Battles Won But The War Lost

by lisachan



Series: Tales of the Summer Palace [21]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mpreg, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23183500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisachan/pseuds/lisachan
Summary: Changing was much more of a long process than he had thought it would be.
Series: Tales of the Summer Palace [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/414045
Kudos: 1
Collections: COW-T - the Clash Of the Writing Titans





	All Battles Won But The War Lost

**Author's Note:**

> ç_ç bb Cee
> 
> Written for this year's COWT #10, W6, M1, prompt: "transmute".

Changing was much more of a long process than he had thought it would be.

Truth be told Professor Tirboll had warned him. That he wouldn’t see the result he was expecting right away. That changing would be painful, that it would be an excruciatingly long and torturous predicament.

Celes stupidly chose to ignore all of his warnings, and also the warnings he found listed in great details in all the textbooks he had to study to gather enough knowledge to come to a point where he could reasonably say he was ready to start.

Blinded by his need to transmute and in no small part by his pride, he believed his magic, being of a different quality than the one of any other mage who had attempted such a thing before, would have made things easier for him. The magic coursing through the blood of the Seers, after all, is a pliable magic, most powerful than most, naturally dedicated to follow the will of the Seer using it. If he wanted to use it to change himself, the magic would obey, that was what he thought.

So he started the process, only to find out it wouldn’t have been easy at all, that it would be even more difficult than what Professor Tirboll had anticipated. As he checked him thoroughly after every time Celes tried to enchant himself and modify his genetic structure, he never missed a chance to say that it was pretty strange what his body did, so stubbornly refusing the transformative magic, needing twice as much magic strength for the smallest modification than any other body would.

Just his luck, Celes remembers himself thinking whenever he goes back to those moments, to want something so desperately and to have his own body as his first enemy. After all, didn’t his very soul try to kill him _and_ everyone he loved after splitting in half, less than two years ago?

Bringing the change to its natural end had been a titanic effort. It took almost one year of continuous, daily work, a huge part of his magical energies were spent, every day, to make sure his new bits stood in place, that they didn’t get reabsorbed, and that the ones he had taken off himself would _stay_ off himself. And it was even harder because the change didn’t just require an aesthetic, external modification – he had to dive deeper into his own body, into his own physiology, rearranging his insides, making sure there was no trace left inside him of the female identity he didn’t recognize as himself.

He had managed, though, in the end. Hard as it had been, it had been done. And for more than a year he had been happy, fulfilled. He had felt complete.

And now this.

Leaning against the toilet, he tries to catch his breath again. Morning sicknesses are killing him, constantly reminding him of what’s happening inside his body, of the change he never wanted, that’s reverting him back to a status that makes him want to crawl out of his own skin.

Pregnant. He’s pregnant. He spends hours repeating it to himself, because he still can’t believe it. And his heart breaks constantly because he sees how happy Lang and Shan are, he sees how overjoyed his mother is, because of course, they think, yes, this happened, but Celes changed himself into a boy once already, didn’t he?, as soon as this whole terrible ordeal is done he can revert himself back into one, and he’ll have gained two children in the meanwhile. A win-win situation, for sure.

Not for him, though. He’s been at war with himself since he was born. And he thought he had won. But he was defeated. And even if, after giving birth, he will surely turn himself back into what and who he’s supposed to be, the stain will remain.

He had become the person he always knew he was supposed to be. And his whole body told him no, little one, think again. You are what _I_ need you to be. What _I_ want you to be. What your heritage, your history, your role as a Seer _needs_ you to be to accomplish what needs to be done.

Celes has fought a lot of battles in his life, and he has won them all. But he lost the only one that mattered. And he’s not sure he’s ever gonna be able to recover from that, whatever shape his body takes today, tomorrow or nine months from now.


End file.
